Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova, speaking to Russian news agencies, dismissed a comment from the US State Department that Washington had no connection to the killing or any prior knowledge of it.

The United States, she said, “created the Kyiv regime, sponsors it, provides money and sends weapons endlessly. The proof is clear: Washington has not once condemned a single terrorist act or planned murder committed by the Kyiv regime.”

There was no immediate comment from Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Moscow holds Ukraine responsible for a string of high-profile assassinations on its soil designed to weaken morale and punish those Kyiv regards guilty of war crimes. Ukraine, which says Russia’s war against it poses an existential threat to the nation, has made clear it regards such targeted killings as a legitimate tool.

Reuters photographs and video from the scene showed a shattered entrance to an apartment building with bomb-blackened bricks and the doors hanging off their hinges, and what looked like two bodies lying beneath black plastic sheets on the snow.

Kirillov worked ‘fearlessly for the motherland’

Russia denies Ukrainian allegations it uses chemical weapons on the battlefield. Kirillov, who was married with two sons, was himself sometimes shown on state TV giving briefings at the Defence Ministry in which he accused Ukraine of violating nuclear safety protocols or the West of various alleged crimes.

Loading

Maria Zakharova, a spokeswoman for Russia’s Foreign Ministry, paid tribute to Kirillov, saying he had worked “fearlessly” for “the Motherland” to expose what she said were the West’s chemical weapons-related and other crimes and what Moscow says were cover-ups in Syria and elsewhere.

Britain imposed sanctions on Kirillov and his nuclear defence forces in October for using riot control agents and over multiple reports of the use of the toxic choking agent chloropicrin on the battlefield.

Such agents, Ukraine has alleged, are used to disorientate its troops, leaving them unable to defend themselves against Russian attacks.

Sergei Sitnikov, a regional Russian governor, said Kirillov was his friend and had told him he was aware of a threat against him.

“Some time ago, he told me that he had already been warned that the hunt for him had begun,” Sitnikov said in a statement, saying he believed Kyiv wanted to kill Kirillov for various reasons, including his involvement in the development and use of a heavy flamethrower system.

Kirillov was murdered a day after Ukrainian state prosecutors charged him in absentia with the alleged use of banned chemical weapons, the Kyiv Independent cited the SBU as saying.

The lieutenant general was also listed in a sprawling unofficial Ukrainian database called Myrotvorets (“peacemaker”) of people considered enemies of the country. A photograph of Kirillov on the website has been overwritten with the word “Liquidated” in red letters.

Russia says Ukraine has carried out a string of targeted assassinations since the start of Moscow’s full-scale war on Ukraine in February 2022.

Loading

The most high-profile cases include the 2022 killing of Darya Dugina, the daughter of Russian nationalist ideologue Alexander Dugin, the murder of pro-war blogger Vladlen Tatarsky in a 2023 cafe bombing, and the shooting last year of a Russian submarine commander accused of war crimes by Kyiv.

Russia’s radioactive, chemical and biological defence troops, which Kirillov commanded, are special forces who operate under conditions of radioactive, chemical and biological contamination and who are tasked with protecting ground forces operating in extreme conditions.

Reuters

Get a note directly from our foreign correspondents on what’s making headlines around the world. Sign up for the weekly What in the World newsletter here.